The Grey NATO – 183 – TGN Book Club 2

Published on Thu, 03 Mar 2022 07:00:10 -0500

Synopsis

This podcast is a conversation between James and Jason about books. Jason is encouraging people to read a certain book called "Stories of Your Life" that is also being adapted to a film. James wants to know if listeners are interested in reading the book together. The episode also includes recommendations on other books to read and a discussion of how reading can provide an escape during difficult times.

Transcript

Speaker
Jason Hello and welcome to another episode of The Gray Nado, a loose discussion of travel, diving, driving, gear, and most certainly watches. This is episode 183 and it's proudly brought to you by our recently formed TGN supporter crew, Going Strong. We get new supporters every day and we thank you all so much for your continued support. And those of you out there that would like to support the show that aren't already, please do visit the gray, nato.com for more details. James, uh, how, how are we doing up there in the snowy, maybe Toronto or is it warm now?
James It's a, it's warmer today, but it's been pretty snowy. We're, we're kind of in that middle where it's like, there's a, you know, there's piles of six feet of snow everywhere, but I can see grass as well. Yeah.
Unknown Yeah.
James We're recording this March 1st. Uh, it, you know, it's, it's a weird time to talk to feel like talking about anything. Yeah. the last week since we recorded the last episode, obviously the crisis in Ukraine has kicked off.
Jason Yeah. It's been very, very preoccupying. I just don't quite know how to approach it. Um, you know, personally it's just, uh, I've been sort of glued to news feeds and not terribly interested or enthralled with, uh, with social media feeds, which is, uh, you know, for better or for worse, it feels a little bit, um, discordant to, to kind of scroll and look at watch photos or post watch photos. Um, on the other hand, life goes on for people and you have to kind of find little bits of joy in everyday life. But boy, it's difficult these days. I mean, it's been, it's been pretty depressing to, to see what's going on and very, very sad.
James So, um, we don't, you know, we don't often discuss world affairs or politics. That's not the purpose of this show. And Jason and I learned a lot in the past when we have to be kind of delicate to the idea that this show does maintain itself as entertainment legitimately. And if you want commentary, look, you can get it from every other corner of the world, but we want to make it clear that, you know, we, obviously stand with Ukraine. And we're just really hoping that the end result is a descaling of aggression and some, you know, support on every side to make sure that disenfranchised parties are protected as much as possible.
Jason Yeah. I mean, like you said, I mean, just since we recorded last, I mean, certainly we saw it escalating for weeks before that, but just the scale of the destruction and some of the images coming out of that are are just horrifying to watch. And I think it leads to a sense of, of, uh, helplessness and frustration on this end, because for one thing we're, we're, we're very far from it, um, you know, geographically, but, but also it's, I want to do more for the people of Ukraine and kind of to raise awareness and, and possibly contribute in some way to, to what's happening. But you probably hear that, that we're being sort of raw and unfiltered in this early part of the show, because I think neither of us are really quite clear on how to approach this other than just to kind of air our feelings about it.
James It feels, um, deeply complicated. It feels almost impossible to, to get an impression of the whole picture, right? Yeah. No, no one wants war or at least no, no one rational wants war. And, uh, you know, the, our, our only real suggestion is if you have the ability to support the red cross or any, any sort of direct funding, uh, we, that, that's kind of what we think is, is the, best outcome if you're looking for any sort of advice. But yeah, donate to the Red Cross. Oak and Oscar is running an auction. So this comes out Thursday, March 3rd. And their auction is for a one-of-one version of their watch with a blue and yellow strap combination. 100% of the proceeds are going to the Red Cross. And currently they're doing the auction through Instagram, which I think is a great format. And they came up with this really quickly. It's a great looking watch and an awesome way to I kind of support the space and access, you know, some of the wealth that sits within this hobby, right? Yeah.
Unknown Yeah.
James And that'll run until tomorrow. So if you're listening the day, this comes out or Friday the fourth, I believe it runs until 5 p.m. CST. And if you're Canadian and you donate to the Red Cross, our government will double your money up to a hundred grand. I don't know who's, if you have the ability to give a hundred grand kudos, but give it, give what I would consider a normal sum of some you're capable of and you get to double your money so that I think that's a, pretty a way to have an impact certainly beyond what governments are already doing.
Jason Yeah. And I think, you know, the Red Cross is one of those kind of rock solid organizations. That's a, that's a good outlet for, for giving. Um, I, I guess I would ask that if any of our listeners have any, um, good ideas in terms of places to give or, or just, um, you know, ways to help, uh, please do post them in the comments. You know, we're, we'll all, we'll all vet things on our own as we, as we're comfortable and as we want to, And it's always a good idea to do that, but, uh, we're, we're open for any and all ideas in terms of ways to, to help out in the cause. So with that, I mean, I suppose we can, we can jump into, uh, the show. We do have a couple of notes to, to talk about, you know, we had the, uh, the first Q and a, uh, popped up for our supporters.
James Yeah, so if you if you didn't get that email or you missed it or went into a folder, you know, it would have been about a week ago. By the time this comes out, we published it on the Friday. It's pretty straightforward. I didn't get anyone that had a lot of issues getting the feed into their app or the rest of it, but it's just an email. You can play the episode right in the email if you want or down in the text. And I'll continue doing this on any of these emails, all of them at the very bottom. I'll just include the raw. URL, and you can take that URL, put it into your podcast app, and then subscribe to the private supporter feed, which has everything. You don't have to keep the other one unless you want the back catalog. But again, keep in mind that the entire catalog is available on Substack, so you can play those in the notes, see the notes, the comments, et cetera, for every episode we've ever done. So I think that's pretty straightforward. The numbers are good. Feedback is great. If you have a question for us and your supporter, please record it into the voice memo app on your phone and then email it to the greenado at gmail.com.
Jason Yeah. And, um, you know, we're always looking at new ways to kind of provide sort of value add for, uh, for our supporters. And one of the things that popped up recently that, that James, you and I were talking about was this idea of maybe a private forum of some sort. And we're still kind of in early days discussing how best to do that. But, uh, it certainly is an interesting idea. And I guess we're wondering if, if folks out there, if our listeners that are supporters would be, would be keen for something like that.
James Yeah, I don't necessarily want direct advice on what platform to use. I think I have a pretty good understanding of what's out there. I don't think we could afford to do Slack, but we'd both be out of house and home if we had to put everybody onto a paid Slack channel. But it looks like Discord is probably the way to go. It's a really straightforward app. The company has a fairly good reputation. it, you know, it, and it allows for a lot of different technological options. So there'd be some ability to share files, obviously text chat, and then it's free, which is great, including free for users and those running the platform. And then on top of that, we'd have the ability to do audio and other things like that, possibly in the future, whether that ended up being things like live shows or a live sort of like a stream or something like that. So we're still looking into it. Um, I think this would be fun. Um, but I, you know, before I put hours and hours into developing the whole platform and getting it going and figuring out a way to do invites and the rest of it. Maybe let us know in the comments if you would like a space for supporter discussions beyond the comments on each episode. So this would be a little bit more in-depth. You could post photos and stuff like that, which is something we can't do in the sub stack comments. So if that's even a little bit of interest and you'd probably have to, I'm sure some of you are Discord users, but for the rest of you, you'd have to download a new app and to check that out, you know, let me know if you have a feeling one way or another. So I'll look into a solution, but we are definitely interested to see what people, what people kind of think would work.
Unknown Yeah.
Jason I mean, we're, we're open to ideas and certainly you know, this isn't something that's going to happen next week or next month, but you know, at some point in this year where we'd like to kind of roll out a little bit more in terms of what we can do for our supporters. So. What else? What else is new? Anything on your end? You, you, uh, you got that print right from the illustrated watch.
James I did. Yeah. I was going to say I, uh, it showed up very quickly. So, uh, we spoke about this Instagram account, um, the illustrated watch, I think two episodes ago. Yeah. And they're these beautiful kind of line drawings, almost like a schematic, but without any, um, lots of detail, but without any like sort of, um, technical details. Yeah. A really beautifully done, uh, typically like a line drawing over a color. And I had suggested kind of off the cuff that I'd be interested in a 1655, the early Explorer II with a kind of an orange background, and they made it. So I picked one of those up, framed it, delivered a little while ago, and I've got it just sitting on my mantel in the living room. It looks awesome. And eventually, I'm gonna have it as part of like a wall that will form like my Zoom background.
Unknown Oh, yeah.
James That's all watch stuff or stuff from friends. I've got... Jason, I've got your print for that Doxa Oh yeah. A poster you did a couple of years ago. I've got a Brett Curry. I can't wait to get framed a Brett Curry, a shot of Angela's crest at night. Nice. Uh, yeah. So there's, there's a handful of stuff that needs to go up, but it'll be part of that. And once it does, I'll, I'll be sure to post some sort of a photo at some point when, uh, when I put that together. Nice. How about you, Jason, you up to, up to much these days other than doom scrolling.
Jason Yeah. Um, you know, just this and that, I, I, the weather has warmed up in a serious way here as we were kind of talking about earlier and it's just, every sidewalk is a lake. So I've been, I've been, you know, running once or twice a week, you know, dancing around puddles. And then Saturday I went out for probably my last good cross country ski for awhile until we get, if it gets colder and we get some more snow because it's a, the trails then get all melty and then freeze and everything else. So that's, that's kind of where I'm at. Other than that, it's a, just been kind of hammering away on the book and, and yeah, um, you know, TGN comes around so often now that it's like, I got to start like keeping a little running list about like stuff to talk about during chit chat.
James So yeah, I feel the same way. I said, you know, I'm just, I'm like, we're right on the edge of, of not having to consider the weather every time you do something outside. Yeah. So hopefully there'll be some more things to chat about. Certainly the summer is our busiest season in terms of actually doing stuff. But, uh, the spring is it's easy to try and hope for an early spring and a chance to get outside and doing a little bit more variety. But I'm hoping to get back to running as soon as the, uh, as soon as we have the, the, kind of average temperature above zero. So hopefully in the next couple of weeks.
Unknown Yeah.
Jason How about on the watch front? Anything interesting on your wrist these days?
James I finally managed to take the CWC 1983 reissue off my wrist. It's actually sitting right next to me, ticking away as it does. And I swapped it out for a Hallios Universa, the pastel dial on the bracelet. You know, I really like this watch. I always have. I think it's one that's probably been wrist check a dozen times or more. but I like the bright color. It's a little bit of a smile. It makes me think of Vancouver. It's one of these watches I kind of go to when I am feeling kind of stressed or despondent or over overdone in terms of exposure to the world. Uh, it just, it, it has this kind of singular thing in my mind when I, when I have it on or when I have any Haleos on really.
Jason Yeah, I think, you know, that's, that's an interesting point. And I think, you know, earlier I said it felt a little flippant or something to, to talk about or post watch photos. And I think that, Yeah. Um, that might be a little bit of a rash statement because I do think that there's something, you know, we find comfort in small things. And I think, uh, a solid watch that, that kind of brings you that, that comfort or, or just kind of a constant in your life, uh, can be very comforting. And, uh, yeah, being that it's March 1st, I, uh, I I'm wearing the, uh, I'm still wearing the Omega. I know I'm getting very boring, like a broken record on the show here. You know, it, it does have a date function and it is March 1st. So I had to, adjust that this morning, flip ahead, what, three days, um, as we're want to do with our date watches, especially those courts ones that have been just kind of dutifully ticking away in a box somewhere. Um, so I gotta go and dig out, you know, the, the various marathons and other watches that I've got in boxes, the Elliot Brown, things like that, that need to be reset. But, uh, like I said, I'm, I've, I've been fairly boring. I've, I have, I guess last week I did put on the, the unimatic you one for, for a few hours, at least.
James Oh, nice. I forgot you have one of those.
Jason Yeah. Yeah. Um, I had noticed that they released a trio of new watches. I think it was earlier this week. Well, I guess it was last week now. And, uh, it just reminded me like what a cool aesthetic they have. So I pulled that out and put it on a, on a ribbed NATO and, and wore that for a few hours and, uh, did some skiing to wind it up a bit. And, uh, it's sitting on my desk here.
James So I should have a more interesting risk check for the next episode for 184. And, uh, actually thanks to, uh, our buddy Cole and a couple of TGN, uh, guys, uh, Michael and Chris shout out to you guys. Uh, I've sourced, uh, kind of I'm rebuying a watch that I haven't, I haven't had in some time. I don't want to give it away just yet. I think it'll be a story. Yeah. I think, or it'll be a more like an in-depth sort of chat about, about this watch and, and kind of the scope around it for me. It's, it's something I've been kind of hemming and hawing on for a long time. And then Colby and Cole, I mentioned it to him and he just said like, Oh, I know some guys. And he goes, actually, I think you know these guys. And, and certainly I recognized, recognize their names and I'll check before I start using last names and stuff. We'll, we'll pull Instagram titles. That's probably easier for, for the next episode, but it's sourced and it's with FedEx now. So it should be here. in the next couple of days. And I'm like weirdly excited, not an expensive watch, just one I haven't had in a while. I didn't own this watch during any TGN stuff. So this predates TGN. So I don't think it's a watch we talk a ton about in general.
Jason Cool. Well, we, you know, we used to do very early days. We, we did, well, we did collection inspection a few times, but then we did the on paper on wrist where we kind of talked about, I guess paper isn't maybe the best thing when you're doing podcasts, but you know, we, we kind of talked about a watch that one of us had that the other hadn't seen and, Oddly enough, this is actually, this would fit that. So maybe we, maybe we can roll it into one of those episodes.
James We could maybe make it an on paper on wrist or, um, and, and for anyone who's listening, if you remember, um, seen unseen, it was a movie podcast from years ago. I don't believe it's still being made, but that was the, I just stole that premise for on paper on wrist. But one of the co-hosts would go see the movie and the other one would just look at the poster and watch the trailer and they'd kind of meet somewhere in the middle. And that was kind of the same idea. So yeah, we could do that. We could definitely make this a collection inspection. This is one that, for what I got it for and for what it is, I don't think it's going anywhere anytime soon. It's probably one I would just loan to people. Yeah. Because it's a sweet spot for this brand. It's a sweet spot for me. And sorry for the tease, but next week should be good. And a big thank you to everyone who helped kind of connect the dots on this for me. They made it almost too easy. All right. You want to get into some book clubs?
Jason Yeah, let's do it. I mean, geez, this is only our second. This is only volume two of book club. We only did one of these.
James So we're trying to think of like what, what to do for this episode, you know, given the context of most people's lives these days, uh, we thought now might be a nice time to, and we're not suggesting ignoring the world or the rest of it, but just, you know, maybe take a break for some, some, uh, you know, self love or whatever they call it, some, some time for yourself. And, uh, so we thought it was a good time to bring the book club back. Jason, the first time we did this was kind of in a not entirely dissimilar fashion. This would have been, I think, the second of the isolation tapes. Oh, wow. So right at the start of the pandemic, it was episode 104. Yeah. And we were trying to do, that was when we first went to weekly episodes. Yeah. And we were trying to just offer a reprieve from the news. Again, not to ignore it, but just at a certain time, like consider some entertainment or an escape, right? Yeah. And that escape could be a walk around the block or a movie, or in this case, some books. So in the show notes, I'm going to include the books we mentioned last time so that we don't have to list them all now. Because for people who've been listening to the show, certainly for the last 80 some odd episodes, but if you've been listening since the start, there's about 15 books that we talk about all the time. There's a reason we're not really starting from the ground floor with the book club stuff. We're trying to expand on that, but I'll include a full list in the show notes if you want to see what we mentioned in episode 104. So we're each going to pick three books and looking at the list, it's a really varied sort of selection. Jason, do you want to kick it off? Yeah, sure.
Jason I tried to pick books that maybe wouldn't be quite as predictable for me. I think I've tended to stick close to my wheelhouse in so many areas and some of these do, but a couple of these were real revelations when I first picked them up. Two of which are actually going to be movies released very shortly. Actually one is going to be a series, but Okay. Yeah. Interesting. So I'm going to start with a book that I think I, I was turned onto this by, I believe it was, it was a book review either in the New York times or outside magazine. And the reason outside would have picked it up is because it's author Peter Heller is or was a contributing editor, longtime editor for outside magazine. And he's written a number of novels over the years. And this one that I read is called the dog stars and it's a work of fiction. It's a novel. It was really interesting. And it's, it's really not a book that if you had just kind of told me the premise, I necessarily would have been attracted to because I'm not a real science fiction or future, you know, post-apocalyptic kind of a reader, I guess. Um, but something about the other elements of the plot appealed to me. Um, and I'll explain. So the, the book is, um, the, the hero or the protagonist's name is Higg. Uh, that must be a nickname. And he's a guy who, um, he's, he's living in somewhere in, in kind of mountainous area of, I believe like Colorado, uh, kind of a semi-rural area, um, living in a world that is, um, largely been, um, decimated by, uh, I believe it's some kind of a pandemic of some sort. So it's, it's timely, even though this book was written back in 2012. Uh, and maybe that's why it popped up in a review recently. It was kind of its relevance. Um, and he's living at an old airfield. uh, like in the hangar with one other guy named Bangley and his dog Jasper and Hig was a pilot and he owns a 1956 Cessna and he's a big fly fisherman and hunter and he lives there and they're kind of guarding their territory because there are these kind of marauding bands of fellow survivors that are always kind of on the lookout for resources and food and fuel and that sort of thing. Right. So it's told from his perspective and, and, you know, he flies these kind of daily sorties in this old Cessna to kind of look at the surrounding landscape and see if they're in any danger. And, um, and then he'll go up into the woods with his dog and go hunting and fishing. And it's this interesting mix of like kind of dystopian post-apocalyptic storytelling with this, the beauty of, of where he's living and kind of this incredible appreciation of, of nature and kind of the, the, the environment and the surrounding area where he lives. as well as these, these interesting connections with the few people that are remaining and, and kind of his interactions. And so there are these kind of tense, scary scenes. And then there is, um, you know, there's this, uh, this, this raw beauty of, of his outings in the woods with his dog and kind of the connection that he has with, with nature. Um, and you know, it's, But the book is just, it's beautifully written. I think, uh, I think Heller just has a real knack, I think probably from his, you know, years of, of outdoor writing. I think he's, his descriptions of, of the mountains and the, and the woods and, and fly fishing are just, um, particularly evocative. And, uh, so I think it would appeal to, to various people on different levels. It's a bit like, what was that movie either Viggo Mortensen or Clive Owen?
Unknown Yeah.
James Yeah. Yeah. That's a Cormac McCarthy's book. Right. Right. This, this sounds like a somewhat warmer version of that. Yeah. The road is freaking bleak.
Jason Yeah. Yeah. No, this is, this is, this is bleak, but there's, there's these elements of warmth and, and kind of love that come through and, and kind of human caring that, that kind of seeped through here. And then you have this, these kinds of technical details about his plane and, and, and kind of his outings in the woods and that sort of thing. So. Nice. You know, so often when we talk about kind of stories set in the future, there's a certain science fiction element to it. And this one's almost a, it's almost like society has kind of melted away and it's, uh, it's just sort of people in nature again, which, uh, right. Which, um, which is a really interesting angle for it. So, and, and he's written a number of, of books that I haven't read others of yet, but, uh, I definitely now want to read some more of his stuff, but yeah, The Dog Stars by Peter Heller is my first pick.
James That's great. Great pick. I have not read that one. I recognize his name, but I haven't read that. Should definitely add it to the list as that sounds, it sounds good. And kind of like you'd mentioned when you were talking about it, I was thinking of The Road and you know, I've not read The Road. I've read excerpts of The Road and I've seen the movie, you know, a tough, pretty tough book, almost to the edge of being like, I don't know, like hypothetical in many ways about, I mean, I guess, I guess it's fiction, so it's all hypothetical, but, um, almost like a thought study in what it would be in, in what some of the emotional impact would be to, to just be cut off from the normal, like lineage of humans. Yeah. Right. Yeah. It's a, definitely an interesting thing to, uh, interesting thing to consider. My first, uh, book is going to be, uh, stories of your life and others by Ted Chiang, who I've talked about this book. I've talked about, uh, his second, uh, sort of, novel that came out after this one. But Stories of Your Life and Others is a collection of stories written by Ted Chiang, which was put out in 2002. And then, of course, later on, the specific story, which is Stories of Your Life, was turned into a movie called Arrival in 2016, which was in our film club. Denny Villeneuve movie, in my opinion, one of the best pieces of science fiction made in quite some time. a really fantastic film that didn't have your, you know, laser guns and yeah, intergalactic flight and, and the rest of it, something much more kind of cerebral. This one, I've really liked both of his books that I've read so far. He's incredibly talented writer, but these are all loosely science fiction stories, but I would say what they are is a little bit more like black mirror in many ways, or, um, the twilight zone, if that's an easier reference, if you, if you're not a black mirror fan where you have some of these are there, they almost read like parables. Mm-hmm. About the future. So it's not necessarily about technology or spaceships or, you know, glass elevators to the sky. Like it's, it's not necessarily in the Asimov space of, of sort of science fiction. Yeah. Um, but I do highly recommend it. Uh, this book especially has a few that were, you know, the tower of Babylon is the story of, of people building a building that goes all the way to heaven and then they break into it. Um, and it's, it's, Absolutely incredible. The scale of it is amazing. The storytelling is a, is really, really special. Um, and then I also really enjoyed, there's a, a story in here called understand is the story. And it's about a man who's given a, an experimental drug after he nearly drowns and has, uh, some brain damage. Yeah. He's given a drug and it makes him incredibly intelligent and gives him perfect motor skills. He gets so smart. He has to create a different type of, um, language to contain his ability to think. Wow. Uh, so it's this very like hypothetical structure of, of intelligence that it's kind of exponentially as he becomes stronger. And then he starts seeing patterns in all of the things that he tracks the, the stock market and government agencies and the rest. And he realizes that he was not the only one to get this drug. Huh? So he tries to devise a plan to attack this other super smart person. It's an absolutely incredible story. I've read it a couple of times. When I finished it, I was just, you know, reading it on, on a e-reader and I immediately went back and started it over again. It's, it's super, super good. And then you have the stories of your life, which like I said, uh, became a rival. It's absolutely worth reading just that story. If you really enjoyed the movie, um, because it's similar in many ways, but tweaked in, in, or I guess the movie was tweaked in some ways based on the original story. So, uh, that's my first one. It's, it's easy cause it's, you know, essentially a collection of short stories. So it's easy to pick up and put down. Yeah, beautifully written. I don't I don't think you have to be like a Star Wars or Star Trek fan. It's it's more of a general idea of where technology and human advancement may go again, sometimes in more alarming ways, sometimes in more comforting ways. I really, really like this book and really all of Ted's writing.
Jason Yeah. I probably should read this just based on the fact that you've, you've brought up Ted Chang several times, uh, in, in recent episodes. And, and, you know, I think my hesitation has always been, I'm just not, I'm not a science fiction movie buff by any stretch. And I don't think I've ever read a book, a science fiction book. So, you know, I need to break out of my comfort zone. And I think, uh, I think a book of short stories is kind of a good place to ease into that. Yeah. It's great stuff. What's, uh, what have you got for a second? Second one. All right. Now this one is, uh, it's a very interesting novel by a British writer named Mick Herron. And, um, he's, I came across this because it was, it was kind of, um, I think it was right after John le Carré died, uh, not too long ago. And there was an article I was reading about kind of who's picking up his, the baton from, from him and kind of who's the next generation of kind of great espionage writers. And, and Mick Herron came up as almost to the top of the list. What's interesting is this, this book is called Slow Horses. And if that sounds familiar, it's because there's actually a series I believe being produced by, I want to say the BBC, um, based on this with, uh, Gary Oldman playing the lead role, uh, or one of the lead roles. And then, you know, he's, he's always good. So I can't wait to see that, but this is very different from any kind of other kind of a spy novel that I've read because the, it's very, it's humorous. It's, it's funny, but it's not, you know, this is anything but a comedy book. I mean, it's not, it's not meant to be overly comic, but the characters just, I guess I would say the author doesn't take the characters so seriously. He gives them some, some major, you know, kind of serious flaws. In fact, the concept of the book and the name slow horses comes from the fact that, um, it's about a group of, MI5 agents that have kind of been put out to pasture or are, um, they've made some kind of fatal flaws in their career. You know, they've screwed up operations or, or, you know, annoyed somebody, uh, powerful and have been relegated to a certain office in kind of suburban London called Slough House. Uh, Slough is, is I believe like a suburb of London. And so this, this office where they're put is this kind of out of the way place for kind of washed up agents called Slough House. And so the members there are tongue in cheek called Slow Horses. And okay, they're, they're left to do very mundane activities. Um, you know, transcribing stuff and, and you know, paperwork basically. Um, but one of the guys whose name is River Cartwright, he's, he's kind of the, the hero of this story. He stumbles upon something, um, and is, is sort of thrust into the main action of of a very serious threat situation. And he's kind of forced into this and is confronted with actually having to kind of redeem himself by solving this case. And his boss, whose name is Jackson Lamb, is the guy who's going to be played by Gary Oldman in the series. He's this very brash, kind of overweight, demonstrably flatulent, guy who runs this place and has kind of this mildly disguised disgust for, for his workers. Right. And, and so he's always popping in and out of these scenes kind of berating his workers and, and they're kind of working in spite of him kind of behind the scenes. And it's, it's, it's really quite good. So you're kind of chuckling while you read it, but then, you know, the, the, the cases that they're solving are kind of grim and deadly serious. So it's so different from, you know, John le Carré or, or Ian Fleming or any, any kind of other kind of very serious, very grim, black and white sort of spy stories. And, uh, sure. So it was a really fun read and, and Mick Herron, he's got a whole, um, series of books called, uh, the Slough House series about the same kind of crew of misfits. And this is the book number one. So this would be the one to start with. If you, if it's appealing to you, then you can kind of continue on and read the next bunch of them. Um, so yeah, this, this is a good one. I listened to the audio book. I think I listened to it on a flight or maybe at some, point recently when I was traveling or last time I did travel and really enjoyed it. So yeah, I recommend it highly. Came out in, it's a few years old, gosh, I think it was, uh, yeah, 2010. So actually it's fairly old. And of course there've been several since then, but, uh, yeah, check it out.
James Slow horses. That's great. Sounds awesome. And that series sounds like it could be really good too. You know, find me a bad Gary Oldman. Yeah, right. Yeah. All right. My second round is another book that I talked about recently, but it's the only thing I've read, uh, all the way through, uh, recently. And, uh, it's probably my favorite piece of fiction that I've ever come across. I just, I absolutely love it. It's the secret history by Donna Tartt. Oh yeah. Uh, it was one where recommended to me by my wife and one of her favorite stories. It's a, it's a really, really, really remarkably incredible book. And it's about a young man from, California who gets accepted to a sort of prestigious liberal arts college in Vermont called Bennington. And while he's there, he ingratiates himself with a few of these sort of outsiders, artsy outsiders that turn out to be really only there to study classics with one professor. And so he goes from a wider school kind of group immediately down to this very tight knit group of old friends that come from money and kind of a different world than he was used to. And he was on the brink of poverty through a good portion of the story. And then it's just kind of about the development of their friend group and things at school. And then, you know, you don't want to give anything away. Something happens that really changes the whole tone as he gets deeper into the, his relationship with these people. And it's, it becomes this beautifully complicated narrative of many different people's motives and, you know, lying and hiding things, and it's simply incredible. When it was over, I was a little bit depressed when I finished it. It's fantastic. I mean, Donna Tartt is, you know, an incredibly celebrated author at this point. The Goldfinch won a Pulitzer Prize in 2014. She's won just about every writing prize you can imagine. Insane talent, beautifully written. I mean, like, jaw-droppingly, you'll repeat some sentences. It's so well done. And if you've already read the story, I highly recommend a new podcast. It's called Once Upon a Time at Bennington College. So there's long been this conjecture because there were several other famous writers that were part of Donna Tartt's group of classmates. So that, you know, there's this kind of fun background that largely couldn't be real, but a large background that these characters are based on real people and possibly things that actually happened. Uh, so if you want to go deeper than what's in the book, uh, I highly recommend once upon a time at Bennington college, it's a podcast that recently came out, uh, for what it's worth. Tart is trying to get it taken down from the internet. I think it's something they don't really want to dig into, uh, what's involved, but then some of the other people that were part of this story, including some very famous names are on the record. So it should be an interesting one. I'm just dipping into it now.
Jason Interesting. Yeah. It's funny, you know, when you first recommended this book a while back, uh, Gashani, immediately got it from the library and read it straight through. And she, she quite liked it. So I'll have to tell her about that podcast and I'll, at some point I'm going to have to read this one. That sounds really fascinating.
James Yeah. No, a great, a great one. One I highly recommend that I I'm already looking forward to rereading at some point. Yeah. Um, you know, this is part of my more recent foray into fiction and I've just been just so, so impressed by, uh, by this one and I'm working my way through, uh, the goldfinch now and loving that as well. An incredible story. Wow. Very cool. Great writer. All right. Your final.
Jason Yeah, this is a, so first two were, were fiction and this one is nonfiction. Uh, and it, I mentioned that a slow horses was about to become a series. This one operation mincemeat is about to be a film that's coming out with a Colin Firth is going to be in this one. Um, and, and you talk about kind of spy or intrigue or espionage films. This is a true story and you read it and you think, how could this possibly be true? Um, and, and some of it is fairly well known now. I think it's, it's so such a fantastic story that, that word has gotten around about it, but this was during world war two and the allies were planning to invade, uh, Sicily and kind of take back Italy from, from the Axis powers. And, um, in order to kind of gain the element of surprise, they wanted to distract the Germans from knowing where they were going to exactly strike. And so what they devised to do was use a bit of a trickery to give like a, uh, a decoy invasion plan, one that was completely false that would divert the Nazis to defend a different part of Europe from, from Sicily, where they were actually going to go. And, and to do that, they came up with this plot to, um, find a corpse and float it ashore in Spain. carrying fake documents with, with invasion plans. And that's the very simplistic version of it. There was so much that went into this and the background that they needed to establish to kind of firm up the story because they figured whoever finds this and investigates, this isn't going to take it at face value. They're going to investigate to see just how true this is and look into this person's backstory and, um, and, uh, you know, this, this was all done at some of the highest levels of British intelligence and, and, and the military, including Ian Fleming was actually part of the Naval Intelligence Office that was devising this plan. So, you know, that might tell you a little something about how he, um, uh, you know, got some of his ideas for, for later stories. Yeah, that's wild. But it's, it's just a crazy story. And one thing is the, the author of this Ben McIntyre, you can read, this guy writes for the times of London, And he's long been like their, uh, intelligence and military writer. And he's got such a knack for this stuff. He's he, I'd read an earlier book of his called rogue warriors about the beginnings of the SAS during world war II, but he's written this, he wrote a book called a spy and a traitor, um, a spy among friends, this one. And this is kind of his, this is his area. This is his wheelhouse. And he writes so well about it. And I'm blown away by, the detail that he digs up to write these books and how many he's turned out. You know, I, I just think this is like a major kind of research project that, that he cranked out here and it's, uh, it's such a great story and I can't wait for the film. I hope it does the book justice. I'm sure it will because it's, uh, it's just such a fantastic story. But, uh, yeah, Operation Mincemeat, it's, um, it's, it's just a, it's just a wonderful story. It's just a fantastically outrageous bit of a skullduggery that is, that is just great to read.
James I wonder if the forthcoming film is gonna consider itself a remake of the original. Oh yeah, there was one, The Man With No Name, right? The Man Who Never Was. The Man Who Never Was. 1956, The Man Who Never... I had to Google it, I can't... That did not come off the top of the dome, don't let me take credit for that. But I was almost positive that Mincemeat had been a movie in the past, just from conversations, I believe, with my father. And yeah, the 1956 war drama film called The Man Who Never Was, a solid one if you like an old movie, for sure. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I'm very keyed into the new one. That's definitely worth checking out. Yeah. The trailer looks good. Yeah. Yeah. So Colin Firth is great. Yeah.
Jason So two novels and a bit of a nonfiction. So those are my, those are my picks. And then you've got a great one for your last one.
James Yeah. I kind of, I felt like I was kind of betraying the TGN book club ethos by not throwing in something from the true TGN like a library if we were to, if we were to have one. Yeah. So I'm going to recommend one that I think everyone should just be given on their 16th birthday. Yeah. Uh, regardless of, of gender or like any of that, just at a certain point you get your driver's license, you should also get a copy of endurance, um, by Alfred Lansing. This is the, essentially the, the main retelling of, uh, Ernest Shackleton's endurance and how it got, you know, locked on ice and all of these incredible stories. And I didn't get to read it when I was a teen. I read it in my mid to late twenties and I've really enjoyed it. I think I've only read it the one time, but it, you know, it, it's just one of the most fantastic pieces of adventure storytelling ever made. Um, in, in my mind, as much as I enjoy something like, um, Blue Meridian, um, Peter Matheson's Blue Meridian, which is definitely also on our big list. Endurance is just, it's, it's an old world. do it, do it in, in, in big, big sort of way adventure and everything goes so poorly, so poorly. And you would never, the ending would never happen again. Yeah. Yeah. Literally once one in a million, they threaded a needle or it's just such a good story. I highly recommend this to anyone, anyone who's interested in, in world travel or adventure or the scary side of adventure. Like when you do travel to the edge of the world, there's nobody coming to get you and your boat doesn't work. Yeah. Yeah. And then it's just the will to live and these guys' ability to really take what would be seen as suffering and make the most out of it. And, you know, there's some amazing photographs that came out of this time. I just highly recommend it. It's Endurance. Shackleton's Incredible Voyage is the subtitle and it's by Alfred Lansing.
Jason Yeah. That's, it's such a classic. And I think, you know, this was actually, I remember doing a book report, if you can remember those, a book report when I was in high school about this book, my parents had, a copy of it and I was at their house recently looking for it and I don't think it, it's still around there because I think it was one of, it was an early edition and I, I'm just, I hope it's, I hope it's still around in the family cause I'd love to reread it. It's a great book. And I, you know, Shackleton has become almost overexposed, like such a cliche. Like I think he's probably on every MBA, you know, course course list is, Oh yeah. You know, it's kind of a good, a good lesson in leadership. But you know, To go back to Lansing's book, and there've been other plenty of other books written about Shackleton and the endurance, but I do think Lansing's is kind of the, the one, the place to start. I think, um, and it's been ages since I've read it, but yeah, you've, you've reminded me and I think, uh, it's a good one to revisit. He's, uh, he, he really nailed the story.
James Absolutely. Yeah. It's a, it's a book that I think everyone should read way up there with all the other ones that we've listed over the past 180 Plus episodes at this point, but yeah, that's a, that's my third pick and rounds out with a little bit of a nonfiction. Um, but yeah, the secret history stories of your life and others and endurance were my picks and Jason's were Peter Heller's the dog stars, Mick Herron's slow horses and Ben McIntyre's operation mincemeat. Three great ones that all are going to make it to my list for a continued reading. Yeah. I'm still, still getting good use out of the Kindle. So I might actually be able to knock a few off the list this year.
Jason Yeah, that's great. And it was, it was fun to revisit book club. I think, uh, I think like you said at the top, this was a, this was a good week to do it. And, um, you know, there's still, still a bit of winter left, which is always a, always good time to, to pick up a book. And, and you know, it's funny when we do film club, we, I think we each pick five films. Yeah. You know, movies are so much, you can, you can consume them just more quickly and a book just takes a little while you kind of sink into it.
James So, uh, Yeah. And the other thing I was worried about was like, you know, some of these books you like with a, with a movie, it could be on Netflix. So it's included in your subscription. It could be on Disney plus or whatever, but with a book, like you either have it or you don't. And if you don't, you gotta go out and spend some money to get it. Yeah. So we didn't want to load people up too much, but if you've read all of these or, or you have something you want to add to this list, something we should consider for Book Club 3 in 100 episodes or whatever, drop it in the comments for the episode on Substack. We'd love to hear more suggestions and really just have a fun conversation about books and ways that we're kind of using them as kind of a welcome escape these days, whether it be fiction or nonfiction or otherwise. Love to hear what you all are reading and enjoying, especially now that you've heard, you know, the better part of six books that have been on our mind for a while.
Jason Good one. Well, that puts a wrap on this one. I don't know when we'll get to volume three, but let's not wait to wait too long.
James Yeah, probably not quite as long. Yeah. All right. Some final notes.
Jason Yeah, sure. I'll go first because it's a follow on to the book you just talked about. So you were talking about Alfred Lansing's endurance and as luck would have it currently right now in the wet LC in Antarctica, there's a scientific expedition going on to actually find the the, the endurance shipwreck at the bottom of, of the ocean down there, which is a pretty darn close to about 10,000 feet deep under ice in the wet L C. And it's just a fantastic expedition that they're undertaking. In fact, they tried to do this, I believe it was two years ago, um, a similar group and they're on an icebreaker called the, uh, the Agulhas, which is based in South Africa, a state of the art icebreaker, uh, science research vessel. And they're, they're using, autonomous underwater vehicles to kind of sweep the seafloor. They know almost exactly where endurance went down based on the, the captain, captain Worsley's final sextant reading of, of the ship and where it lay before it disappeared under the ice. And so they're kind of circling that area, um, to sweep the ocean floor. And if you want kind of regular updates on the expedition, there's a really great YouTube channel called history hit and It's, uh, it's, uh, kind of hosted by this guy named Dan Snow who, um, has done all sorts of kind of history, um, talks and, and interviews with, you know, Randall fines and Michael Palin and, uh, and others, but he's actually on board the Agulhas right now. And he's doing these, I wouldn't want to say daily, but regular updates on the progress of this expedition and their, their search for the endurance. And it's, it's really quite fascinating. You get a tour of, Of the, of the ship, of the goal is itself. And he goes out on the ice while they're kind of locked in for a while. Um, it kind of goes into depth in, in some of the equipment they're using. Um, so it's, it's really fascinating and, and, you know, to kind of be. Witness to, to what's going on in real time almost, and see what, how the search is going. It's, it's pretty fascinating and they have pretty high hopes that they're going to find it this time around based on the technology and kind of what they know about, about where endurance went down. So. So we'll see if history's made, but if nothing else, I think History Hit is a good follow on YouTube anyway, just because they put out some really great content.
James Super cool. And yeah, a nice tie to Lansing's book as well. That's rad. What a huge undertaking.
Unknown Yeah.
James Yeah, it really is. Wow. Wow. Wow. All right. Mine is a significantly lower stakes. It's a coffee maker. Just recently, my wife got me a gift of a cold brew coffee kind of like a system.
Unknown Yeah.
James And, and I kind of roll my eyes at the, or I had rolled my eyes at these systems because in the past when I wanted to make cold brew, I did it the most difficult way possible, which is, you know, soak a ton of, of course grinds and, um, and then strain them painstakingly strain them. Yeah. Uh, this system, which is like between 20 and $30 us, um, is, is a one liter pitcher with a central funnel or a central mesh system that holds the beans.
Unknown Yeah.
James So you actually make it and then let it sit in your fridge for 24 hours or whatever. And then you just pour what you want out of it and it keeps making it.
Unknown Oh, okay.
James Yeah. So it's, it's very straightforward. It's nice and easy to clean. Uh, it doesn't take up a ton of space in your fridge and it's not that expensive. And if you like cold brew coffee, the recipe that they provide makes pretty much drinkable right as it comes out, you don't have to water it down. It's strong enough to take cream or milk if that's what you prefer. In the past, I would use a lot of coffee, like four to one, and make like concentrate, and then I'd water it down from there.
Unknown Yeah.
James And I think both options have their merits, but this is so easy, and it uses much less coffee, which is great. There's less waste, less cost.
Unknown Yeah.
James But yeah, if you're planning on doing the cold brew thing once the weather turns around, or if you're just looking for a break from however you're normally making your coffee, I like this for the cost, the simplicity. I like the aesthetics of it are nice, and it's just simple and easy, and it makes good coffee. Can't ask for a lot more.
Jason Yeah, that's great. I mean, 19 bucks for the red version of it, which is, uh, entirely reasonable. And I love the fact that it's just reusable. You just wash it and use it again. And I think one thing that scared me off about cold brew, it's just, it was labor intensive and kind of took up space and it was just, you know, took a while. Um, this looks super friendly. I love the idea, especially for summer. I don't, I don't see myself using it quite yet, but I could see, you know, come May, June, July, this being really appealing.
James Typically we're an espresso house. So you drink the coffee so quickly. There's something nice about a cold brew with some ice and you can just kind of sip at it. But it does have the high, like for anyone who cares or is worried about it, like cold brew is typically four times the caffeine. So, you know, kind of like with other things you can take low and slow, you know. And so far I've been very impressed by this and I'm looking forward to having it up and running all summer. Nice. Yeah. That's a good pick.
Jason That's a great one.
James Yeah, lots here to kind of dig into, lots of books to read, lots of stuff to chit chat about. So be sure to get into the comments and say hi and drop any sort of thoughts that you've got on the episode. And other than that, thank you so much for listening. If you want to subscribe to the show notes, get into the comments for each episode or consider supporting the show directly, and maybe even grab a new TGN signed NATO, please visit TheGreyNATO.com. Music throughout, of course, is Siesta by Jazzar via the free music archive.
Jason And we leave you with this quote from Charles W. Eliot who said, Books are the quietest and most constant of friends. They are the most accessible and wisest of counselors and the most patient of teachers.